So I was taking the practice test they provide in the PSAT booklet, and afterwards I found it to be pretty easy. I started grading and I was shocked by how many I actually missed. I ended up getting a 1480/1520…will this be good enough (in your opinion) to make the cutoff for PSAT??? Since I live in California (historically high cut-offs), should I be going for at least 1500???
Well, the game of guessing the cutoff score is a good way to drive yourself crazy. So let’s play.
Here is a document @3scoutsmom pointed me to:
Page 24 of this document
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/redesigned-sat-k12-using-scores-and-reporting-inform-instruction.pdf
So despite the test reverting to the 1600 scale, selection indices look to be based on 3 subscores: math, reading and writing. In other words, language arts still weighs double (as I predicted! Finally got one right about the new test!).
You can find the subscores on the Raw Score Conversion Table. You add up the 3 section subscores to get your index. So for example, say you missed 4 math, 3 reading and 3 writing questions. Your subscores would be 740 (which I think turns into a 37 section subscore – they don’t actually say that), 37 reading subscore and a 36 writing subscore.
Then you add up the subscores and double them to get the selection index. So in my example numbers, that’s (37+37+36)x2 = 220.
But what does that mean? Can you compare it to previous year’s cutoffs? Who knows? It’s tempting to guess that the cutoffs will be lower, but we don’t know that. While a perfect index is now 228 rather than 240, there is no longer the giant drop- off for missing just one or two questions.
So go back to the first sentence of this post…or just do the best you can and then let the dice roll. That’s actually a pretty good plan for the entire college admission process.
Yeah I was afraid it would come to this, but you are right; I’ll just have to try my best since guessing curves is to unpredictable a task. But according to this-----> http://blog.prepscholar.com/national-merit-semifinalist
I should be fine. Hopefully the cutoff will be similar to these scores (California is only 1400 for example). Thnx btw.